A Shard of Glass
by denytheworld
Summary: She saw it all in a shard of glass. From the outside looking in.


**Title:** I Saw It All In a Shard of Glass  
**Characters: **Ichigo, Rukia, Orihime

I saw it all in a shard of glass.

It was Friday night and as usual, our group of friends had assembled for our weekly dinner. Tonight, it was our turn to host. Rukia and I have been roommates since we were in college. Even now, four years after graduation we were still together. Even though our apartment was much larger than the pitiful thing we had back in college, we could barely fit all of our friends around our kitchen table. That meant a few of them ate in our living room.

Rukia hated that. The petite woman usually stays up for hours after our friends have left, cleaning. No matter how tired she was, she wouldn't even dare sit down until everything was mopped up, washed, vacuumed, and sorted. She hated disorderly things and spontaneity. It's a miracle that she has stuck around for so long then. I am anything but orderly.

That night, we had given up fitting people into our kitchen at all and were all settled in the living room. There were a lot of people, more than expected, actually. A few of our friends had brought their significant others. Fortunately, there was enough food and ice cream to go around, and then some. That was mostly thanks to Rukia. She was always prepared for the unexpected - it was always so. In college, she was the one ready for anything the professors managed to throw at her, while I...I barely survived.

Everything was going well that night. I was extremely pleased with myself. It was hard to make sure everyone was having a good time after all. Everyone had their food, everyone was laughing, and there wasn't a mess in sight!

CRASH!

I spoke too soon. I was in the kitchen, getting some ice cream for Keigo-san when it happened. It was nothing serious. It was a complete accident that the wine glass dropped. It was almost empty too so the resulting stain on the plush carpet wasn't extremely large. But it was a big deal because it was _Kurosaki-kun _who had dropped the glass.

The shouting began almost immediately. "Kurosaki, you blundering _idiot_." Rukia began, and like a tennis game, the verbal battle began. "Perhaps you should sit down before you make a bigger fool of yourself." She hissed acerbically and knelt down to pick up the shards. Of course, I hurried over as well, to play mediator. Putting Kurosaki-kun and Rukia together for even five seconds is dangerous.

"Rukia, perhaps you should sit down before you suffer from a hernia." Ichigo shot back and immediately, Rukia's left eye began to twitch. His lack of formality always heckled her greatly. "And you're doing it wrong."

"Doing what wrong?" Rukia snapped, her voice going up a pitch. "I'm _picking up glass_. An idiot can pick up - "

"Then you're an idiot." He seemed rather pleased with himself.

"Why you -"

"Rukia, Kurosaki-kun, please -"

"Stay out of it, Orihime!" They both hissed. I cringed and stepped back. Belatedly, remembered they hadn't seen one another since Tatsuki-chan's Christmas party six months ago. No wonder they were at each other's throats. Ishida-kun had joked that it was all that pent up frustration, but...I'm not so sure. They did seem to enjoy bickering though.

So I retreated to a safer distance to supervise their clean up. Our friends knew that as soon as they started arguing, the two were oblivious to the outside world. They "hated' one another, or so Rukia had claimed. But if they did hate one another, why did they seek out each other's presence in get togethers like these. Why would Kurosaki-kun willingly come to our dinners? If I was younger, I would like to claim that it was because of me that he came, but I know better.

But I saw it then, while I was watching them. I saw the reason. They both reached for the same shard, their eyes met and as cliched as this sounds, it was like time stopped. Ichigo smirked, Rukia smiled, and then nothing. It was like it almost didn't happen. But I saw it.

I saw it all in a shard of glass.


End file.
